How Will You Measure Your Life?

My notes

“No CEO wants to tell shareholders that he wants to invest to create a new business that’s going to be responsible for killing the existing business, especially if it’s much less profitable. Who would go for that?”

Netflix checked Blockbusters, because if they do nothing Netflix will outplay them. If they attack Netflix they will be weaker, but at least they will survive. Blockbusters wrongly estimated Netflix future market (which is not that trivial, as estimate bitcoin price in 2011 for example)

“Does that mean that we should never hire or promote an inexperienced manager who had not already learned to do what needs to be done in this assignment? The answer: it depends. In a start-up company where there are no processes in place to get things done, then everything that is done must be done by individual people—resources. In this circumstance, it would be risky to draft someone with no experience to do the job—because in the absence of processes that can guide people, experienced people need to lead. But in established companies where much of the guidance to employees is provided by processes, and is less dependent upon managers with detailed, hands-on experience, then it makes sense to hire or promote someone who needs to learn from experience.”

Startups doesn’t care about your “I learn new staff fast” because they need to provide product even faster than you are able to learn. Instead they need people with qualifications that will literally solve thier problems now. That’s why consulting companies are so good in doing it. They offer tangible competency right now. While in big corporations what really matters are processes that need to be done by some resource (human or machine). Resources are replaceable, or at least they should be, otherwise your company is based on humans which can change work, die or machine that can be damaged. What really makes solid company is processes that describe what, why and how need to be done. They were created by senior officers who were leading this jobs when the company was start-up. You as a employee are just resource assigned job that needs to be done with process.

“What are all the experiences and problems that I have to learn about and master so that what comes out at the other end is somebody who is ready and capable of becoming a successful CEO?”

If you want to become well paid employee ask yourself, how does person on this possision look like, what does he know, how does he act, what problems does he need to solve. If you don’t know, then find someone like him (it can be book, interviews or even movie) then master this.

“Helping your children learn how to do difficult things is one of the most important roles of a parent. It will be critical to equipping them for all the challenges that life will throw at them down the line. But how do you equip your kids with the right capabilities?”

What is the most important thing you need to equip your children with ?

“As I look back on my own life, I recognize that some of the greatest gifts I received from my parents stemmed not from what they did for me—but rather from what they didn’t do for me.”

Sometimes the greatest gift from parents it’s not what they give us, but what they don’t. Or rather the fishes they didn’t have us, and learned us fishing

“too few reach adulthood having been given the opportunity to shoulder onerous responsibility and solve complicated problems for themselves and for others. Self-esteem—the sense that “I’m not afraid to confront this problem and I think I can solve it”—doesn’t come from abundant resources. Rather, self-esteem comes from achieving something important when it’s hard to do.”

Where does self-esteem comes from, actually it is not self-esteem, but self-efficacy

“Every successful product or service, either explicitly or implicitly, was structured around a job to be done. Addressing a job is the causal mechanism behind a purchase. If someone develops a product that is interesting, but which doesn’t intuitively map in customers’ minds on a job that they are trying to do, that product will struggle to succeed”

What every successful product has to do

“Many products fail because companies develop them from the wrong perspective. Companies focus too much on what they want to sell their customers, rather than what those customers really need. What’s missing is empathy: a deep understanding of what problems customers are trying to solve. The same is true in our relationships: we go into them thinking about what we want rather than what is important to the other person. Changing your perspective is a powerful way to deepen your relationships.”

We focus to much on ourself. Same thing applies to buying gifts. We have to stop thinking about ourself, what would be good for us, and start thinking about the other person

“I genuinely believe that relationships with family and close friends are one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. It sounds simple, but like any important investment, these relationships need consistent attention and care. But there are two forces that will be constantly working against this happening. First, you’ll be routinely tempted to invest your resources elsewhere—in things that will provide you with a more immediate payoff. And second, your family and friends rarely shout the loudest to demand your attention. They love you and they want to support your career, too. That can add up to neglecting the people you care about most in the world. The theory of good money, bad money explains that the clock of building a fulfilling relationship is ticking from the start. If you don’t nurture and develop those relationships, they won’t be there to support you if you find yourself traversing some of the more challenging stretches of life, or as one of the most important sources of happiness in your life.”

We often forgot how important the relationships are. We are eager to invest in everything else that gives immediate payoff. And also, your friends and family rarely shout the loudest to demand your attention. Yet, you have to nurture them, to support you during the most challenging periods of life.

“The most important time for the children to hear the words, the research suggests, is the first year of life. Risl”

The most important time to invest in your child is the first year

“Investing for Future Happiness”

Great thought about neglecting friends and family

“The relationships you have with family and close friends are going to be the most important sources of happiness in your life. But you have to be careful. When it seems like everything at home is going well, you will be lulled into believing that you can put your investments in these relationships onto the back burner. That would be an enormous mistake. By the time serious problems arise in those relationships, it often is too late to repair them. This means, almost paradoxically, that the time when it is most important to invest in building strong families and close friendships is when it appears, at the surface, as if it’s not necessary.”

Friends and family are the source of happiness.

Paradoxically, the time when it is most important to invest in building strong families and close friendships is when it appears, at the surface, as if it’s not necessary.

“A strategy—whether in companies or in life—is created through hundreds of everyday decisions about how you spend your time, energy, and money. With every moment of your time, every decision about how you spend your energy and your money, you are making a statement about what really matters to you. You can talk all you want about having a clear purpose and strategy for your life, but ultimately this means nothing if you are not investing the resources you have in a way that is consistent with your strategy. In the end, a strategy is nothing but good intentions unless it’s effectively implemented. How do you make sure that you’re implementing the strategy you truly want to implement? Watch where your resources flow—the resource allocation process. If it is not supporting the strategy you’ve decided upon, you run the risk of a serious problem. You might think you are a charitable person, but how often do you really give your time or money to a cause or an organization that you care about? If your family matters most to you, when you think about all the choices you’ve made with your time in a week, does your family seem to come out on top? Because if the decisions you make about where you invest your blood, sweat, and tears are not consistent with the person you aspire to be, you’ll never become that person.”

Investing is applicable only to time in concious decision.

“For many of us, one of the easiest mistakes to make is to focus on trying to over-satisfy the tangible trappings of professional success in the mistaken belief that those things will make us happy. Better salaries. A more prestigious title. A nicer office. They are, after all, what our friends and family see as signs that we have “made it” professionally. But as soon as you find yourself focusing on the tangible aspects of your job, you are at risk of becoming like some of my classmates, chasing a mirage. The next pay raise, you think, will be the one that finally makes you happy. It’s a hopeless quest. The theory of motivation suggests you need to ask yourself a different set of questions than most of us are used to asking. Is this work meaningful to me? Is this job going to give me a chance to develop? Am I going to learn new things? Will I have an opportunity for recognition and achievement? Am I going to be given responsibility? These are the things that will truly motivate you. Once you get this right, the more measurable aspects of your job will fade in importance.”

Chasing the mirage

“if you want to help other people, be a manager. If done well, management is among the most noble of professions.”

Manager profession

“The truth was that having the house wasn’t what really motivated them. It was the building of it, and how they felt about their own contribution, that they found satisfying.”

What motivates is not having something finished, but the process of making it, of contributing in something.

“By taking these jobs, they managed to pay back their student loans. Then they got their mortgages under control and their families in comfortable financial positions. But somehow that early pledge to return to their real passion after a couple of years kept getting deferred. “Just one more year …” or “I’m not sure what else I would do now.” All the while, their incomes continued to swell.”

By the time is getting harder and harder.

“There are a determined few who never lose sight of aspiring to do something that’s truly meaningful to them. But for many of us, as the years go by, we allow our dreams to be peeled away. We pick our jobs for the wrong reasons and then we settle for them. We begin to accept that it’s not realistic to do something we truly love for a living. Too many of us who start down the path of compromise will never make it back. Considering the fact that you’ll likely spend more of your waking hours at your job than in any other part of your life, it’s a compromise that will always eat away at you.”

Most of people lose faith that you can do what you love and live from it. And age doesn’t help.